Ecommerce 101: How to Launch a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

11/21/2017 4:16 PM

Email marketing remains, until this day, one of the most powerful marketing channels you can use to drive sales to your online store.

The reason why it’s so effective is because a person’s inbox is personal. They already permitted you to send promotional materials, transactional emails, coupons, or anything else that will make them loyal to your brand.

However, don’t think that email marketing is solely used for making sales. It’s also about building a relationship with existing and potential customers.

The majority of your site’s visitors are new and will not return. Luckily, you can use email to make them come back.

Here’s how you can launch a successful email marketing campaign for your online store.

Step 1 - Choose The Right Email Marketing Platform

The email marketing platform will be used to save your email list and to send the emails.

Here are some popular options you can consider:

AWeber;

MailChimp;

Constant Contact;

Campaign Monitor;

GetResponse;

ActiveCampaign.

Most of these platforms come with either a free plan or a free trial, so you’ll be able to test them out before deciding which one you’re going to use.

Step 2 - Build Your Email List

The more people you’re going to have on your email list, the more successful it’s going to be.

If your online store has already made sales, then you can add your customers to the email list. To grow it, even more, you can use these ideas:

Give away free content. This will act as a lead magnet. For it to work, the free content you’re giving away needs to be related to the product/s you’re selling. If you’re selling women’s clothes, for example, you can create a winter lookbook so that your customers can get inspired.

Run competitions. These represent an excellent and easy way to get a high amount of email addresses. The only downside is that there’s always the risk of generating subscribers that aren’t actually interested in your products.

se an opt-in form. You can place the opt-in form in your sidebar, on your about page, inside your blog posts, in your footer, or as a pop-up. To make it compelling for visitors, offer an exclusive deal or discount they can use for their next order.

Step 3 - Segment Your Email List

Once you have grown your email list, you need to use segmentation to make it even more effective.

An email marketing campaign will bring you the best results if you segment your list based on people’s interests, products they purchased, or actions they’ve taken on your site.

This way, you’re going to avoid sending out emails that are irrelevant to them.

Each email marketing platform will provide different segmentation options, so look at their documentation first to see what features they offer.

Step 4 - Establish Goals

Once you’ve segmented your email list, you need to set your goals and determine exactly what you want to achieve.

You will need to set different goals for each segment in order to create a successful email marketing campaign. For example, the strategy you’re going to use for new subscribers is going to be different than the ones you’ll use with current customers.

You should also keep this mind when crafting the campaign emails.

Step 5 - Create The Email Copy

Only after you have segmented your list and set your goals you can go ahead and start creating the email copy. With all of the above in mind, you’ll have a much clearer idea of what you want to communicate to your email lists.

When you’re done with the copy, it’s time to create the campaign in your email marketing platform of your choice and schedule it.

Track and Test Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Besides the total number of subscribers, you should also track the following:

Open rate;

Bounce rate;

Click-through rate;

Opt-out rate.

Set up Google Analytics to track all the links you’ve added to the emails. If you do not see the results you’ve hoped for, use A/B testing for your email, including the subject line.

Take the liberty to experiment with your campaigns and don’t forget to use segmentation to get the most out of email marketing.